


White Noise

by anr



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The quiet is deafening; he'll sleep when he can hear gunfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Noise

**Author's Note:**

> _Goodbye, Farewell And Amen_ (11x16).

1\. _they're not making the skies as blue this year_ \--

Home is exactly like he remembers.

"Room seems smaller," he says, standing in the doorway.

His father pushes him inside with a snort, almost knocking him off balance with a duffel that still smells like Korea. "It's just as you left it," he says, dropping the bag and dusting his hands of it. "I told Pete and Mary Hutchin's we'd be over for dinner, once you were back. They'll be expecting us."

He smiles, and nods, and wishes for a two-hour shower, a twelve-hour sleep (alone or with blonde company, either would be preferable), but says, "sounds great, Dad."

His father turns to go and says, "it's good to have you home, son."

Home. In Crabapple Cove. Where he belongs.

Not in Korea.

Standing in his bedroom, he watches his father leave and wonders where he'll put the still.

  


* * *

  


33\. _shadowboxing in the dark_ \--

"Heard you tossing and turning again last night," says Dad in the morning. "You sleeping all right?"

The quiet is deafening; he'll sleep when he can hear gunfire. He says, "like a baby."

"My throath hurth," lisps Amy Martin, four years old and sweeter than pie, "can I have a wowwipop?"

The tongue depressor is ten-feet long and two-feet wide and surely going to choke her; his hand shakes just a little. He says, "open wide and say ahh."

"Hawk! How're you doing?" says Beej, long-distance at lunch. "Isn't it great to be home?"

In Korea it's almost two in the morning and they've just finished sixteen hours in the OR, thirty minutes with Margaret in the Mess, and there's a martini so dry it's practically vapour waiting for him in the Swamp. He can already taste it. He says, "no place I'd rather be."

"I get off at five," says Sharon-who-works-at-the-pharmacy-and-never-wears-khaki-and-black, twirling a strand of dark brown hair around her finger. "How about a movie?"

Meet-you-in-the-supply-closet. My-tent-or-yours. I'll-get-a-jeep. His ready supply of pick up lines trip and stumble into each other as he lies and says, "sorry, I've already got plans."

  


* * *

  


90\. _i do not know what fate awaits me_ \--

He works and drinks and stands on the shore, sometimes, just watching the trawlers bob along the horizon. Some days he thinks can see Korea in the sunrise, but that's only an illusion because the air here is thick with salt and not nearly humid enough. He's starting to feel homesick now, maybe in the sense of being sick of home, but the only other address he can think of is the Swamp and that place still gives him nightmares.

BJ calls weekly, at first, then fortnightly. Pretty soon it'll be monthly. They talk weather and patients and speculate on Doris Day's personality. Every so often Beej says, "remember when..." and he knows that, a minute or two later, the reminiscing will falter and they'll ring off with a too-cheery goodbye. They're both trying to remember all the good that came from Korea but it's hard when everything is stained red.

Personally, he's hoping to have the blood on his palms washed away by 1955.

"Maybe you should travel," suggests Dad, one night on the porch. It's twilight and quiet and almost too cold for porch sitting, but Dad's determined to milk fall for all it's worth. "See a bit of the country."

"Trying to get rid of me already?" he jokes, but the suggestion tantalises while he's not looking and Dad knows this. And he knows that Dad knows that he knows this.

And he also knows that already his claustrophobia is starting to return, reminding him of why he went to study medicine in Boston in the first place. Reminding him that Crabapple Cove will always be home, but that home will sometimes feel kind of small.

"Might be nice to see how some of your friends are doing," muses Dad, ignoring him in that way only parents can. "BJ, Margaret, Sherman -- it's been awhile. You could go visit them."

"Yeah," he says, fully seduced now but reluctant to show by how much (they could go dancing, he thinks, like he always promised her they would -- cheek to cheek and the Lindy from dusk til dawn), "maybe I will."

  


* * *

  


213\. _nothing's bad as it may seem_ \--

But he doesn't. The flu season hits Crabapple hard, forcing a steady routine of throat cultures and sinus infections that keep him busy. The next time Dad brings it up the idea of going visiting, it's March already and winter has all but passed him quietly by.

It's funny. He hasn't forgotten Korea, his nightmares haven't hibernated with the cold -- they _can't_ \-- but sometimes, occasionally, when he's not been paying attention, he knows the memories have eased and waned and faded into the corners of his mind for a short while.

(He takes a shortcut across the football field behind the local high school on his way home one night and it's not until he's stepping off the neatly cut grass that he realises he didn't even once think about landmines.

He stitches up the Thomson boys, arms and legs and chins cut from a nasty fall off the roof of their barn, and doesn't head for his book cabinet for a hidden bottle of gin the moment he gets back to his desk. He doesn't even _have_ a hidden bottle of gin in his office; Henry, he knows, would've been disappointed.

He dozes in the armchair he considers his own in his father's living room and doesn't jump or curse or even tense when Dad slams the screen door on his way inside, tossing him the mail with the brief warning of, "incoming," before the small bundle lands in his lap.

He gets bombed, glass after glass of scotch slipping down his throat, melting his bones and thoughts like -- only it's _not_ Korea he's remembering one night, Margaret and him and a too small cot, it's his graduation and friends he hasn't thought of since before he left the States, achievement and victory and youth buzzing through his veins almost as much as the booze.

He asks Sharon Winston to the movies and walks her home again after, leaving her on her front step with a handshake and a thank you and absolutely no desire for anything more.)

Lying in bed with the taste of salt and butter popcorn still in his mouth, waiting for sleep or whatever close approximation of it he'll manage, he tells himself that this is a good thing, this not-quite-forgetting. Proof positive that he's -- if not healed -- then still _healing_.

It's a very good thing.

(He just wishes it didn't make him feel like he should feel guilty.)

  


* * *

  


232\. _i'm taking you in on a 502_ \--

Sidney writes to see how he's doing and, because it's almost spring, because he _can_ , he agrees to visit. After the calm of the Cove, New York is brighter than he was expecting, the city almost achingly alive.

"It's not surprising you feel a little lost," says Sidney, his diplomas and degrees framed and polished and lined up, one after another, on the wall behind his couch.

"Lost?" he repeats, shaking his head and smiling just a little too hard. "Listen to me, Sidney -- I know exactly where I am. I'm _home_. Crabapple Cove is in my body, my bones -- I cut myself the other day and bled shellfish." He waves a bandaged forefinger as if to illustrate the point.

"How'd you cut yourself?"

He rolls his eyes. "Ever the shrink, huh, Doc?"

Sidney grins and spread his hands, palms up, the white of his skin almost blinding. "The pay's poor, but the dental's not too bad."

His own palms are still only twenty-nine percent clean; he's thinking 1956 now. "Dropped a glass, sliced the tip. Just clumsy, I guess."

"Operated on anyone lately?" asks Sidney.

He smirks and lies out of habit. "Well, I'm not sure Margaret would appreciate the euphemism but..."

"Margaret?" Sidney raises an eyebrow.

_Where?_ He almost looks over his shoulder before realising his slip. Recovering, he spins the lie out into safer waters as quick as he can talk it. "O'Brien. Margaret O'Brien. Of the O'Brien sisters. From the Crabapple O'Brien's -- a gorgeous trio too irresistible to resist if you know what I mean." He waggles his eyebrows.

Sidney smiles back, chuckling a little too. "Performed any surgery lately?" he rephrases, relentless.

Stretching his arms up, he links his fingers behind his head and slouches in his chair. It's tempting to put his feet up on the edge of Sidney's desk, to sit the way he used to in Korea, with Henry or Potter opposite, but he stops himself before the habit can fully take over. "Not much call for it in the Cove," he says lazily. "Though I did take out Timmy Baddley's appendix last month."

"And how'd that go?"

_My hands shook so much I thought I was being electrocuted. For a moment I thought we'd be like that all day -- me just standing there, shaking, and him dreaming, dying, on the table. Forever._ Later, when he thought about it, he could have sworn he had heard a baby crying.

He smiles toothily though, smiles and says, "couldn't have done it better myself."

Sidney smiles back.

  


* * *

  


306\. _got the string around my finger_ \--

Another day.

Another day, week, month, and then another, and it's not so bad, his memories, when the sun is shining and the flowers are blooming, the previous year -- _years_ \-- growing more distant by the day. He's sleeping more now, counting his naps in hours instead of minutes (and drinking less too, if he's being honest with himself, the bottles he keeps in the duffel at the end of his bed lasting longer and longer) and as he makes his way to Ma's Diner on Elm, he's thinking about everything, and nothing, and --

"Hawkeye? Hawkeye Pierce?"

He turns, imagining things surely, but no, he's not, and, "Bigelow!"

She laughs, and nods, and hugs him so tightly when he leaps the sidewalk to her side that for a moment -- for a moment --

"I thought that was you!" she says, voice shattering the illusion. "How've you been?"

"Fine, fine. And you?" He puts her at arms length and looks her over, up and down, side to side, and whistles appreciatively. "You look great," he answers himself.

"I feel it," she agrees, glancing a look at Ma's. "Lunch?"

He opens the door for her and bows low, still smiling. "After you."

  


* * *

  


308\. _here is a heart that is lonely_ \--

Bigelow can't stay for long -- she's just passing through -- but while she's here, oh, while she's here it's _wonderful_. They see each other every day and every night and if it wasn't for that first-base-only restriction she's put in place, he'd -- well.

It's their third lunch, seventh meal, and as they picnic near the waterfront, he presses the issue.

"Things are different now," she says, gesturing with a half-eaten apple. "In Korea you only had to promise the other person you'd live to see sunrise; here you have to promise them a white-picket fence."

He knows she's right, has known all along why she's protecting second, but temptation and nostalgia weigh so very, very heavily. So he tries out his new lines, brings back his old ones, and lets her shoot them all down, laughing as she does.

"Stop," she says, tossing the apple core into his lap. "You don't want me."

A rakish grin. "Oh, yes, I do."

Her hand on his cheek, mirth fading just a little. "Not like that you don't." He forgets, sometimes, that she's done this before. Gone to war and come home again. Dealt with the baggage and learnt to live anew under its weight. "You're just happy to see me."

He leers on cue and she admonishes him with a soft chuckle.

"Hawkeye, I mean me as in _someone you knew in Korea_."

She's still right, of course, but the conversation is in danger of turning contemplative and he wants the fun back, even if it is only fleeting. So he smiles his best smile and throws away the apple core. Grabs at her gently, delighting in her playful shrieks, and for just a little while longer, the silence stays away.

  


* * *

  


324\. _soon all the world will be sleeping_ \--

He calls BJ from his office, their monthly schedule holding on strong. "You gotta help me, Doc," he says as soon as the line connects. "I've a serious problem -- I can never seem to remember what I've just said."

"And how long's this been a problem?"

He grins. "What problem?"

BJ chuckles. "How are you, Hawk?"

"Looking forward to seeing some of the fairer sex around here in bathing suits." It might only be the first of summer, but the weather's already writing cheques he can't wait to see cashed. When he opens his top drawer to search for a pen, he finds his groucho marx glasses and nose instead. Pulling them out, he spins the mask on his finger, smiling. "How's Peg and the kid?"

"Soon to be plural," the joy in BJ's voice is bright and unmistakable. "We're expecting come December!"

"Beej! That's terrific! Congratulations!"

"We think so. Hey, did you hear about Margaret? She's --"

The conversation shifts and flows and runs, did-you-hear's and do-you-know's, patients and families and promises to come visit. He mentions an article he read on improved sterilisation methods; BJ counters with tell of a new procedure he saw performed the week before.

Later, as he listens to BJ ring off without saying goodbye, the peace and quiet and scents of summer settle in close, silence again pressing down all around, sure and steady and still.

  


* * *

  


337\. _shackled to a memory_ \--

Three summers he spent wishing himself home for the fourth of July, and now that it's here -- now that _he's_ here --

The motel he finds is near a depot, two county's over and a country away from the worst sound he's ever heard, the sound of a baby not crying, and he drinks until he can't, the gin going down hard and rough and grating, his sandpaper memories rubbing him raw.

A freight train trundles by, rocking the room and echoing like thunder. He sleeps.

  


* * *

  


360\. _got them gone but not forgotten_ \--

A year to the day the silence begins, Dad takes him out fishing. They don't catch anything, the hours casting slowly by, but the rush of water is calming, the drifting conversation relaxing. This is what it was for, he thinks. Not the reason he went -- he still owes the Army a strongly worded no-thank's-for-you card for _that_ invitation -- but maybe part of the reason why he did what he did over there.

For this. A warm summer day. A warm, _peaceful_ summer day, perfect for --

For a moment he imagines he can still taste his favourite regular army on his lips.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"I think it might be time I took some R n' R."

His father casts out another line. "Hmm."

  


* * *

  


365\. _i'll be seeing you_ \--

A dozen different ways he could have imagined this moment if he'd ever have let himself. A letter, a call, an accidental meeting in some bar, some hospital, some all-American street corner here in the land of the free and brave.

But not like this. Not with four days on a bus -- a _bus_ \-- behind him and the Christmas card she sent him in his breast pocket, guiding him on. (He's never been this guy before, and the fit, real though it may be, is disconcerting.)

"Pierce!"

"You look --" She looks _wonderful_. Real and alive and bright, sunshine on her hair and only a memory of dark circles under her eyes. He rocks back a step, suddenly unsure. _Maybe he shouldn't have_ \-- "I should have called."

"No, no." She shakes her head and lets go of her front door, stepping down onto the top step so that she can look up at him. "It's fine -- how are you?"

"Here." He means -- that is, he wants to say -- he _wants_ \-- "I'm here."

She steps forward again, reaching up so that her fingers can skim across his shoulder, his neck, her hand anchoring on his nape and tugging him down and close. Her forehead rests against his.

Blood roars in his ears at her touch, his heart pounding like artillery, white noise drowning out the silence for the first time in forever. He could live in this moment, he thinks. Sleep and breathe and live right here.

She smiles. "What took you so long?"

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> SOUNDTRACK:  
> 01\. "Wish You Were Here" (Eddie Fisher) 1952  
> 02\. "I'm Beginning to See the Light" (Harry James) 1945  
> 03\. "High Noon" (Frankie Laine) 1952  
> 04\. "Pretend" (Nat King Cole) 1953  
> 05\. "St George and the Dragonet" (Stan Freberg) 1953  
> 06\. "I've Got the World on a String" (Frank Sinatra) 1953  
> 07\. "Why Don't You Believe Me?" (Joni James) 1952  
> 08\. "Now Is The Hour" (Bing Crosby) 1948  
> 09\. "Cold, Cold Heart" (Tony Bennett) 1951  
> 10\. "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" (Hank Williams) 1950  
> 11\. "I'll Be Seeing You" (Billie Holiday) 1944
> 
> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/453838.html>


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